


The Other Side

by riverchic1998



Series: Superheroes [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, The Author Regrets Nothing, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:00:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverchic1998/pseuds/riverchic1998
Summary: A collection of one-shots and alternate POV side scenes from the Superheroes universe.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Superheroes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845628
Comments: 23
Kudos: 399





	The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> I have so many more ideas that just don't fit into Superheroes, so they'll go here. It will be a combination of one-shots that don't really belong in Superheroes, scenes or backstory told from other characters (besides Stiles), and just fun stuff I feel like writing. 
> 
> This first chapter is literally my life, minus the superheroes. Every single thing you read, regarding the videos and conversations, I have watched and/or said. Links will be in the end notes.

Stiles and Derek have been in the Tower long enough and cultivated a good enough relationship that Stiles is comfortable wandering the halls and heading to the common area without Derek when his insomnia kicks his ass. Even though Derek doesn’t need as much sleep as a human, he still needs _some_ sleep. 

When he rolls out of bed, Derek blearily wakes up but Stiles just tells him he’ll be around and will have his phone on him. Derek rolls over and pulls the blanket over his head. Well then. 

There’s no one else in the common area, which Stiles has come to realize is actually rather rare. Insomnia and nightmares are part and parcel of being a hero, super or not. He flops onto one of the couches and stares at the television. 

“Friday, will you pull up Youtube?”

“Certainly. Any particular channel?”

Stiles grabs one of the random fancy remotes and hopes it actually works on the television and doesn’t disable the elevators or air conditioner or something. “Nah. I’m gonna cruise until I find something interesting.”

For about half an hour, he switches between video game let’s plays and reaction videos. He clicks to an old favorite, the Lion Whisperer, because he loves a kindred soul. When he catches up on those videos, his recommended feed updates. 

A video title catches his eye and he sits up. Please god don’t let this be clickbait. 

Two hours later he’s texting Scott because _what the ever lasting fuck_. 

_To: Scott - I just spent the last two hours watching videos about ants on Youtube. Yes, really._

He’s not that surprised when Scott actually replies. He gets up extremely early because Kira is a morning person. Ew. 

_From: Scott - LOL WHY?_

Stiles makes an affronted noise. Why? Why the fuck not? This shit is cool!

_To: Scott - BECAUSE IT’S ACTUALLY REALLY INTERESTING_

The current playlist ticks over and the next video pops up. Stiles leans forward because he is invested in the Golden Empire, okay? Those blood-sucking mites need to go. The poor babies. 

He looks up from his phone when Natasha walks in, followed by a zombie-walking Clint. Stiles doesn’t even think the archer is awake; Natasha looks disgustingly put together, despite her still wearing comfortable pajamas at four in the morning.

Her eyebrow raises when she sees exactly what Stiles is watching. She settles next to him and Clint flops onto one of the other couches face down, immediately snoring up a storm. 

“Ants?”

Stiles nods enthusiastically. “They have bathrooms. And graveyards. My mind is _blown_.”

Her judgmental look fades into mild curiosity. Stiles immediately backtracks to the episode with the Fire Nation, because who doesn’t love fire ants? Halfway through the episode, Natasha pulls her phone out and allows him to snoop to see what she’s doing. She’s doing her own research and Stiles beams at her, showing her that he has the same page pulled up. It’s about how female alate ants create new colonies by basically have orgies until their wings fucking fall off. 

It becomes a ritual for the two of them, one that no one else in the tower understands. Dr. Banner sits in once, but he quickly falls asleep, because he’s one of the rare people with a regular sleeping schedule. Barnes and Steve can’t concentrate and get distracted too easily. Stark still hasn’t forgiven him for the night he tried to get Stiles drunk and refuses to stay in the room overnight with him. Clint always sleeps through the videos but can recall random facts from the videos when asked. 

If one watches a video, they’ll text each other without spoilers. Of course, Stiles has no idea Natasha got his number until he got a text about the weaver ants one morning. She’s also scarily good at finding ant memes on the internet, which Stiles didn’t even know was a thing. 

The one time she does accidentally spoil him, he curses her in Russian and calls her the spider. That opens up the doors for nicknames, apparently. She starts calling him ‘crazy ant’ in Russian _and_ English, which garnishes some weird looks around the Tower. Eventually, everyone catches on that it’s regarding their _weird ant obsession_ , as Stark calls it. 

They both wake up at nine in the morning on a Saturday to watch the live release of the ant versus spider video. Stiles mocks Natasha because the spiders died to the ants. 

Her revenge is a glitter bomb in the conference room chair he always sits in. Ugh. 

One night when he’s exhausted the ant videos, Stiles goes looking for another YouTube hole again. He’s a connoisseur of wacky and crazy things but is very aware of how to stay away from the dark side of YouTube. 

He tries watching some satisfying videos of time lapses, but the editing is too jarring or the music too obnoxious. From there, he jumps to big machinery and metal-working. The algorithm reconfigures so his feed is bombarded with list videos. Just when he almost gives up, Stiles’ eye catches on a thumbnail of a black knife that is actually pretty interesting. Then he sees the title. _World’s sharpest smoke knife_. 

“Oh yes please,” Stiles says clicking to the video. 

Half an hour later, he asks Friday who all is up in the Tower. Stark and, surprisingly, Dr. Banner are awake. He’ll take it. 

“Ask them to come up here please? I have a scientific question. And possible experiment.”

Stiles figures that the request is odd enough, especially coming from him, to get them to the common area. Stark walks in first, eyebrow raised expectantly. “I was summoned?”

Stiles points to the screen. “He made a knife. Out of _smoke_.” When Stark blinks at the screen, Stiles makes grabby hands. “I _want it_.”

Dr. Banner arrives, looking like he really should be asleep. Stiles gives him a hard side-eye, but his curiosity wins out over logic. “Smoke knife. Knife made out of actual smoke. _How_.”

Stark crosses his arms. “Friday, how legit is this?”

“I’m confident this exact process could be replicated and improved. All needed materials and machines are in the Tower.”

Stiles throws his arms up in victory. “Smoke knife?” he asks excitedly. 

A slow grin appears on Stark’s face. Stiles ignores Dr. Banner when he facepalms. “Smoke knife.”

They all stay up through the night, but in the end, they make an actual knife made of smoke, which was mixed with melted rawhide, _but still_.

Dr. Banner goes to sleep when they try to start in on making a seawater knife without any seawater. They go back and forth on alkalinity levels and pH balance but don’t get anywhere. Friday blocks Stark when he tries to get into the Iron Man armor to take a dip into the Atlantic Ocean for the water stating that he has a budget meeting later he already promised to attend. Derek takes the lag in experiments to drag Stiles away for breakfast. 

Even though Dr. Banner was helpful, he was also tired. To make it up to him, Stiles goes to the lab during normal hours on a day when Friday assures him Dr. Banner isn’t busy. He approaches carefully, almost timidly, hoping not to disturb the man again. At least he looks more well-rested.

Supernatural senses prevail once again as Dr. Banner looks up when Stiles enters. 

Stiles waves like the dork he truly is before shuffling forward. “Hey, Dr. Banner. Sorry again for kidnapping you with the knife thing. I was wondering if you could help me with this. It’s kind of like what we did the other night, but without Stark’s craziness.”

Dr. Banner gives a wry smile. “Well, in that case…”

Stiles explains what he’s trying to do. He saw a video of turning a piece of wood transparent and immediately thought about if he could change the look of rowan wood while keeping the mystical properties the same. He could make jewelry to protect against malicious supernatural entities without it being obvious it’s actually mountain ash. Of course, to Dr. Banner, he just wants to turn wood transparent. 

“I know that you would be the best person to ask since Stark’s area is more mechanical and yours is chemical. Plus, we wouldn’t be as distracted. I swear he dialed my ADD up to 21.”

“He has that effect on people,” Dr. Banner assures him. “I’m not sure if this is possible with the wood you brought, especially since the video talks about the specific wood needed.” At Stiles’ near pout, Dr. Banner shrugs. “But we can at least try.”

They don’t punch through the full day to get it to work. There’s a lot more trial and error than there was with the smoke knife, especially since they’re working with different materials than in the video. It takes four days and multiple failed attempts, but they end up with a weird, misshapen piece of almost translucent wood. Stiles decides to have Derek test it later before he even attempts to recreate it on his own. 

Stiles holds it carefully in his hand, rubbing his finger over the strangely smooth wood. “This is still so cool. Thanks for helping me with it, Dr. Banner.”

Dr. Banner takes off his glasses and gives him a small smile. “You know, you can call me Bruce. Although I appreciate the recognition.”

Stiles snorts. “Trust me. I am _very_ aware you are a genius beyond the reasoning of us mere mortals. My ex-girlfriend used to wax poetic about you in high school. I swore she read through your paper on some physics theory a million times our junior year. The moment she finds out where I’ve been, she’s going to scream so loud my eardrums will probably pop.”

He isn’t joking about that tidbit either, although Bruce chuckles along with him. “Well, I know that Steve paved the way for working around the NDAs you had to sign. I’m sure we can do it once again.”

“You’re going to regret that,” Stiles tells him. “So hard. Much will be your regret.” When Bruce looks a little skittish at that, he continues on. “She’s working on her second doctorate at MIT. This one is in biological engineering. She will be bugging you about biophysics until your ears bleed.”

Stiles wishes he could take a picture of Bruce’s face and send it to Lydia with the caption _your genius has impressed Bruce Banner_. Maybe he can get Friday to get a still from one of the lab cameras. Or just send a recording. 

“That sounds like a welcome break, actually.”

He chuckles and turns to leave the lab, but spins back around quickly. “But you keep her away from Stark, okay? He can’t have her. Also I’m pretty sure she would murder him and I don’t have time for that.”

“You know I can’t make that promise, but this is all theoretical anyway.”

Stiles knows that with the idea in the air, it’ll be reality soon enough. “Thanks again, _Bruce_ ,” he says as he heads out of the lab. 

Who knew that his weird as fuck YouTube habits would help him bond?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first of all, I need to share [this text](https://dream-mancer.tumblr.com/post/624486101271396352/this-is-an-actual-conversation-i-had-with-my) with my lovely girlfriend Jacy (aka Andrea). Yes, I did basically insert this into the fic. 
> 
> Second, the ant videos are so interesting. It's a channel called [AntsCanada](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONd1SNf3_QqjzjCVsURNuA). The editing and music is well done and they really are educational. I am invested in these little fuckers. He has a ton of other animals as well. So many bugs. 
> 
> Third, you have to check out [kiwami japan](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg3qsVzHeUt5_cPpcRtoaJQ). He makes knives out of the craziest things. SUCH AS SMOKE. He even made a guillotine out of chocolate. Come on. 
> 
> Transparent wood is a thing. I honestly found a video about it during one of my sleepless nights trolling YouTube and my immediate first thought was turning rowan wood into jewelry for supernatural uses. Scientists at the University of Maryland first figured it out, and then I found [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1H-323d838) by NileRed that goes a lot deeper into the process.


End file.
